Ash Tree
by Malakhim
Summary: Oneshot. The Doctor and Rose watch the end of the world. Again. TenRose


This is just a curious little bit of nothing - I still don't know quite what inspired it, assuming one needs a better source of inspiration than David Tennant's performance as the Doctor.

It is intended as Rose/Ten but could be read as a Nine. I own nothing and no copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

She felt him shiver as she held his hand, as if from excitement, apprehension, or even some muted variation of fear; the tremor passed from the familiar coolness of his palm through her skin and ran, like an electrical charge, a vaguely uncomfortable and yet soothing tingle from her fingers past her wrist, elbow, shoulder – deep, deep into her chest until she felt it had formed a subtle chain, an invisible link between herself and the Doctor, and she squeezed his hand, offering an easy, encouraging smile he did not see. 

His eyes were set on the shimmering of the air between the crooked boughs of the wrinkled ash tree, a frown furrowing his brows to reflect the frustration palpable in the thinning of his lips as he pressed them together, lost in contemplation, and the distinctive manner in which he sucked in his cheeks to leave his cheekbones chiselled, protruding unnaturally, stonily and hard, from a face that was better suited to smiles and laughter.

Sometimes she wondered how somebody so old, somebody who had seen so much, done so much, known so much and still remembered so much was even capable of so simple a gesture as a smile. The sheer simplicity of such a human custom seemed suddenly trivial amongst the vast, dark planes of eternity, meaningless and inconsequential against the endless death that defined the universe. And now, here he stood, a wearied crease marring his forehead, unblinking and un-breathing, unmoving but for the continuous quivering of his hand in hers, and she longed for a smile, for that honest, reassuring beam of almost childish joy that would make everything okay.

So she squeezed his hand and smiled, feeling her cheeks thick and clumsy and her lips stiff and unresponsive as though in a pained grimace; he started, blinked and his wide-eyed gaze flew to her face, unruly strands of cinnamon coloured hair bopping merrily before his face. A moment passed, one of those rare, strange, unsettling moments where she could almost see untold aeons recorded in his eyes, could read his age, his weariness, his loneliness in his gaze but then he blinked, as he always did, and his face softened as he said her name.

"Rose," he said, adopting the hackneyed, mockingly melodramatic voice that made it easier for him to peel his face into a shadowy grin. "Rose Tyler, here we stand at the brink of civilisation, the world's literal and metaphorical end, the entire universe as you, and billions like you, know it about to be consumed by a blasted time warp because an idiot clad in an oversized trench-coat and armed with nothing but a screwdriver has managed to forget the codes of Ancient Lore."

Behind him the air shimmered as though the fabric of the world billowed in an invisible wind and briefly, the silhouetted outlines of the tortuous ash tree, the angular symmetry of the Tardis, grew hazy. A dull, monotonous buzzing was rising in her ears as she watched the distant skyline plunge into a blackened horizon of ragged rims, distant mountains stabbing into the darkening skies like tiny crystals as though they had been wrought forcibly apart and casually discarded a long, long time ago.

"You've never forgotten anything before," she offered feebly, and she could see he almost laughed at the futility of her comment.

"In a maze you only need to make one wrong turn," he muttered cryptically. "I have made many. Some out of vanity, or some due to a lack of information but more still out of sheer stupidity, yet more often than not…"

"Two wrongs made a right?"

She flinched as he flung out an arm, gesturing wildly whilst his eyes sparkled with a sudden burst of animation and he breathlessly exclaimed: "Three, ten, billion wrongs! Or maybe just luck. Luck has made me lazy." He sighed, raising the hand that did not remain intertwined with her own and extending one sleek finger. "Look at that," he breathed, as sudden splashes of violent colours, reds and scarlet and indigo, erupted along the distant skyline. For a moment the trembling ceased and her world felt still and timeless, her distance to the Doctor somehow greater though he still held her hand and their shoulders brushed.

"It is beautiful. Terrible, though, and frightening…"

"It is the end of all things," he said and in his voice was a tinge of wonderment, of longing and of bitter regret. A juxtaposition of emotions mingled in his face as she turned to look at him, finding the frown once more between his furrowed brows, his skin too pale and almost ashen in the ghostly half-light of the dying world. Still his cool touch clung to her clammy palm and though she was unsettled, scared, maybe even slightly terrified, her heartbeat felt slow and dull and distant, as though the pulse beating in her fingertips, the hollow rhythm throbbing in her ears belonged to someone, _something_, else.

"Technically, it has been so before," she reasoned. "We've seen the end of the world loads of times already - haven't we? – and we've always pulled through allright…" Here, she hesitated but he kept his silence, standing once again rigid and deaf, his gaze transfixed on the distant melting of the sky. "Haven't we, Doctor?"

* * *


End file.
